Passions of a Tainted Kind
by VampirexXxLovely
Summary: In a story of love, loss, hate and loneliness, Tina is caught between the turmoil of losing the life she loves, watching as her loved ones slowly fade away like a dieing candle, hating the man that took it all away and feeling the loneliness that comes wi
1. Prologue

My name is Tina Conners. I'm 25 and just graduated from college and am looking for another job now that I have more time on my hands. I would have been filling out applications the night after my graduation but my friends decided I would do something I haven't done since the summer before my freshmen year of college. It was decided that I would go clubbing. Fun!

I was forced into clothes I thought I had gotten rid of, but apparently not, consider the circumstances. I was dolled up and looking my age for the first time since mid terms.

Figures the one night I have a life, it gets taken away. Right out from under my feet.

Now as time drones, all I can do to keep me sane is hold onto the memories of my life one's lived in comfort and conentment.

Living out my days with _him_ as my only contact to the out side world. It's times like these you wish you had died int that dark alley.


	2. The Beging

It was supposed to be a fun night out on the town, as my friends reassured me to no end. 

A fun night on the town? Yeah, right. I remember, I had job application and this kind of stuff just wasn't me anymore. I remembered, vaguely, how this used to be fun to me. Getting hit on by random guys that smelled like booze and other, unidentifiable odors. I could remember loving the dancing till my feet hurt and my ankles throbbed and then going to another and repeating the whole scene over and ever, at nausea.

But those times were, what seemed back then, a century ago. And, having gone through college and worked that whole, had matured and knew that even one of slacking would throw me off the road entirely. Now, looking back with clear and unintoxicated eyes, I can recall it all so vividly, so, I shall tell you my tale from past to present.

I came into this world like every other human being who decides to lay in the womb, a c-section. Not knowing what was going on, I looked around in wonder, I suppose, as all babies do. That is the one memory I can't call back, my first five months.

I was always a smart little brat that remembered everything, almost as good as I today. I remember I had an older brother, and a mother who was never home, and a father that made her cry. He was never as well. My older brother would tell me, "Mom's cryin' 'cause he might get fired agian." or "Mama's cryin' 'cause he is off with 'that woman ' again."

I remember I would ask what he meant by that woman and what he was doing making those movements with his index and middle fingers. He would tell me to never mind and go to sleep. I didn't go to sleep much 'cause I would always check on my mommy. She would always tell me to never mind to and that it would get better.

Well, I guess, in a way, it did.

Mom, left him. When I told her about 'that lady' and him playing "hide and go seek" in the bed again, she got mad. I remember the yelling perfectly, sadly enough.

"Jonathon!" I heard the muffled cry from behind my mommy and daddy's bedroom door. I wanted to see what was going on, but mommy said to never open their bedroom door when they were in there together.

"Carry!?" Daddy sounded, looking back, shocked that she was home. Mommy always worked late. "Carry, honey, this isn't what it looks like."

"Don't pull that! I might have been able to give you another chance, had this not happened again, and again, and again, and again! God forgives less then I have! I even might have forgiven you still, but you did it with my children in the house! What are you thinking!? You know what our daughter said to me as I walked in the door, and asked for you? She said, 'Daddy said not to bother him unless it was an emergency. Daddy was playing "hide and seek" with "that lady", again.' When I asked where and she saw my face and heard my tone, she got the weirdest look on her face. Her response, Iin your room. In the bed. You can't play big people "hide and seek" anywhere else. Daddy said so last time "that lady" was over.'"

Mommy stopped and I could her hear her breathing hard.

"Sweety I can-"

"No you can't! You can't talk your way out of this one." Mommy sounded calm, with a fierce under toe of rage just below the surface. "You will leave now. Leave and not come back."

It was then that I noticed I knew exactly what was going on. Daddy was doing something bad. He was, now that I know the actual term, cheating on my mom. As I realized this, something inside me died. My devotion to my father, once unbound, was destroyed. The woman I would be forced to put up with soon became my step mother and hated me with all her being. My liking for the two of them died as the years went by at a slowness that put a turtle shame.

When I was seven, one of my best friends died. My grandfather on my father's side. As I looked at his body before the group of mourners arrived, something inside me changed. I had cried for three days straight and this was the second day of viewing and things were becoming easier. I was becoming numb. Things around me were changing, too. The way I saw people, the way I heard the things they said. It seems, to me now, that I had become more tuned into the truth of what they were saying and feeling, though it meant nothing to me. I was merely a spectator of the show.

No body cared, though, what my father being "He's always been there, What will we do with out him?". What, indeed. He was dying inside, too. Though, I suppose, I was more scathed, then dead. Though, my father, he was utterly and completely lost to me, now. And, I guess I knew this, even then, maybe.

I found refuge from the weeping mourners in the room up on the second floor of the small funeral home. Till I was called down to go home . . .

"Munchkin?" My step mother, Leslie, called up the stairs, having not known where I was. "Munchkin, are you up here?"

I had fallen asleep on the floor in front of Toonami. Stiff and tired I stretched and righted myself, making my way down the stairs to her. As I turned the corner and stepped onto the platform half way up the stairs, I stopped dead in my tracks. Something about her was different.

Scratch that, everything about her was different. Her not so comforting smile was now a smug look of victory. Her stance was poise and unfaltering, not the like the rest of the mourners who racked with sorrow. Even those who had themselves together were hunched over and had air of defeat about them.

Then it clicked.

Her air of victory, their sense of defeat, or loss rather.

She was victor over them. ...No. Over him!

I stood there as it all fell into place.

She had defeated my grandfather by staying around longer then his physical self could. Like a film being played before my mind's eye, I watched all the memories of my grandfather and her in a room together. There were no hugs, friendly gestures. My grandfather's actions were mechanical. He was only nice to her because that's what he was. Nice. She was merely behaving like a good girl until... Until she no longer had to deal with him!

It hit me like a wrecking ball.

He hated her and was protecting me and my father from being fully sucked into what ever she had planned. Comprehension adorned my face till I caught myself and replaced with a mask of sorrow. Though, I would soon find out, those two seconds of truth would be the down fall of any plans for a relationship with my father.


End file.
